The Power of Secrets: Weekend Freewrite

I apologize for being so incommunicado, pretty much everywhere. Not that many people have noticed, but I am sick and have spent the majority of the last three...no, four days in bed. Even sitting up to read drains me. Thankfully I generally prepare all of my Friday-Sunday posts ahead of time anyway, so that was set.

Today I am posting a weekend freewrite that I completely forgot to post when I wrote it. I suppose it was waiting for today. You can find the "How to" on doing a three part freewrite here thanks to @mariannewest

This is a part of the "Secrets" series. Probably part 3. You can read the previous parts if you'd like:

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My mother was doing that thing she did. That thing with the rag in the sink. Squeezing the life out of it, rinsing it, squeezing it again. Over and over.

She was looking out the window, but I could tell she wasn’t seeing anything. She was wishing for Fred to walk through the door again. My heart hurt for her, but I was tired of feeling helpless. It was time to do something and screw whatever anyone thought of me, I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted my mom to be herself again. To lose that lost look in her eyes. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing left to lose.

I got up from the kitchen table and put my arm around her waist. I hugged her and saw the tears well up in her eyes like they did anytime I tried to show her emotion. She was holding onto the appearance of ‘normal’ so hard that it just took nothing to topple her over into a mess of emotion. I squeezed her one last time and headed out the back door.

It was time to revisit my strengths, find my power and figure out how to be a help to my mom. How to find Fred and how to get our lives back, whatever that might mean.

I knew that mom wouldn’t be happy about it if she was in her right mind, but that was irrelevant at this point. She wasn’t thinking clearly and nothing else was being done. I was the only one left to do anything. The police weren’t finding any leads, the investigators were hopeless. It was up to me.

The plane was two hours late. Of course it was. I don’t even know why I was the one who had to go meet Fred’s mom at the airport anyway. I had already been ready to leave, to do my own thing and I was damn sure that I couldn’t accomplish anything if I was carting some old woman around.

What I hadn’t planned on was Fred’s mother. Holy cow I was not prepared for that woman at all. I’ve never met anyone like her before, but to be fair, I’m not sure she was at all expecting me, either.

She popped off of that plane and pretty much floated over to me. She wore a flowing floral dress and a big floppy hat. Her white hair was just peeking out under the edge and she had the perfect amount of just the right colors of makeup on to make her look a decade younger than she surely was. She oozed this energy of sweetness and light that was somehow… reassuring and refreshing rather than saccharine and too sweet. It was oddly relieving. I found my resentment had disappeared by the time we’d gotten back to the car.

Most adults freaked whenever I drove, seeing that I was a relatively new driver, but not Mrs. Morrison (That’s Fred’s mom’s last name, just in case you missed it). Nope. She was just thrilled with me, with my driving. She even complimented me on my ratty old clothes and seemed genuinely interested in me as a person. It was like we were two people that just met at the bridge club or wherever it is that people like Mrs. Morrison hang out.

I was relaxing so much in her company that I almost forgot what I had set out to do.

Mrs. Morrison was chattering on about Fred again. She obviously adored her son and although she was obviously distraught at the fact he was missing, her absolutely 110% positive attitude seemingly made it impossible for her to think the worst. She was somehow convinced that it was all just a big misunderstanding. Me? I wasn’t so sure.

“I mean, really,” she was saying, her hands fluttering about like two little humingbirds, constantly in motion and yet movign so fast as to seem half invisible, “Can you imagine Fred just disappearing? He’s always been such a special boy. Have you seen the way he writes with both his left and right hand? He’s been able to do that since he was three years old! And that’s not all. He used to do magic shows and he did all sorts of Houdini like escapes. He could escape anything!” she laughed, this angelic tinkling laugh that sounded like magic itself, “I remember he used to make his father and I tie him up or use padlocks and trap him so he could prove to us that he could get out… and what do you know? He always managed to escape! That’s how I know he’ll be fine. Whomever has him won’t know that he can get out of anything!” She turned to me at the stop light and suddenly sounded urgent, “They won’t know that, will they?”

I looked at her and tried to be reassuring, but at the same time, I thought maybe she was off her rocker just a little. Why was she so sure that someone had taken him? Was there more to the story that the rest of us didn’t know? Was there a reason someone would want to kidnap Fred? What if this really had nothing to do with my mother and I at all?

I realized at that point that it might be better if I didn’t go off on my own just yet. There was obviously more to learn.

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And... Part 4 (Yes, I posted out of order, because I didn't even realize I didn't post part three at the time!)

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_{All Photos are Mine.}